In the late autumn of the second year of the Xiantian era, Chang'an's ghost market was rife with undercurrents.
Though Lu Lingfeng holds the important post of Judicial Registrar of Yongzhou, his identity as the son of a princess leaves him walking on thin ice amid the power struggle between the Retired Emperor, the current emperor, and the Grand Princess. Seeing the dangers of court life clearly, Su Wuming uses a gourmet shop called Six Harmonies Snowflake Pastry as a front while secretly gathering intelligence for Lu Lingfeng, hoping to find him a way out of this seemingly hopeless situation.
But the bizarre case of the paper figures stealing lifespans shatters the outward calm. People in the ghost market turn gray-haired overnight and die suddenly, with nothing left at the scene but a strange blood-red paper figure. Every clue points to a mysterious organization called the Nine Nether Alliance and its leader, the Wheel King. They wield no ordinary killing techniques, but a forbidden evil art that can steal another person's remaining years to prolong one's own life: the Life-Borrowing Technique.
As their investigation deepens, Su Wuming and Lu Lingfeng discover that the Nine Nether Alliance's influence has already spread through all 108 wards of Chang'an. Its ultimate goal is to use sorcery to manipulate the imperial bloodline and overthrow the Li dynasty. Meanwhile, a shadowy force made up of descendants of the Sui royal house and former officials of the Wu Zhou dynasty is gradually emerging. They sometimes collude with the Nine Nether Alliance and sometimes oppose it, making the situation even more treacherous.
The Tang Mystery Investigation Squad is forced to assemble once more in the vast maze of Chang'an. They must face not only strange sorcery and tangled conspiracies, but also the ultimate tests of their own convictions regarding loyalty, family, and morality.
This magical and suspenseful palace fighting spirit and monster novel is a masterpiece! It takes palace mysteries as its guide, its bones as its bones, and its soul as its meticulous reasoning. The hauntings of monsters are intertwined with the ghosts of people's hearts, and the undercurrent of the court is wrapped in strange stories. The foreshadowing is exquisite and the twists are unexpected. In the game of magic and power, the thrill of solving the case and the thrill of the palace battle are just right. The more you read, the more you get addicted!
A plan within a plan, a plan within a plan
The plot is more ups and downs than the TV series. It would be great to make a TV series based on this!